Bad Bunny, Gaga and Bruno top the pop charts, but there’s a surprise near the bottom : NPR

The fundamentals of the Billboard charts this week remain largely unchanged, as Bad Bunny‘s Debí Tirar Más Fotos holds at No. 1 on the albums chart and Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” tops the singles chart for a fourth consecutive week. In fact, to locate the most notable attributes in this week’s charts, we’ll be looking not at current chart performance, but at a couple of remarkable streaks.

TOP ALBUMS

Last week, Bad Bunny’s new album Debí Tirar Más Fotos had a huge week, yet still barely squeaked into the No. 1 spot thanks to an unlikely bit of competition. Taylor Swift‘s Lover: Live in Paris, released for a limited time via Swift’s webstore, debuted at No. 2 and came in only 1,000 “equivalent album units” — Billboard-speak for the cocktail of sales and streaming that informs the album rankings — behind Bad Bunny’s blockbuster.

But, given the limits on its availability — it’s no longer available via Swift’s website and hasn’t dropped on streaming services — Lover: Live in Paris was destined to be a short-timer, and it’s already disappeared from the charts as quickly as it arrived. That left Debí Tirar Más Fotos the clearest lane it’s had to the top of the charts, so it’s no surprise that Bad Bunny sits comfortably at No. 1 this week, followed by SZA‘s supersized SOS Deluxe: LANA, which climbs from No. 3 to No. 2 in Swift’s absence.

The only new album to hit this week’s top 10 — in fact, it’s the only new album to hit this week’s top 100 — isn’t really a “new” album at all. Mac Miller‘s Balloonerism, which debuts at No. 3, was recorded and shelved more than a decade ago, then completed years after the rapper’s death in 2018. It’s Miller’s second posthumous album, following 2020’s Circles, and his eighth overall to hit the top 10.

From there, the top 10 is filled out by the usual suspects — Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, Lil Baby, Morgan Wallen, Billie Eilish and Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department — though Gracie Abrams‘ The Secret of Us leaps from No. 10 to No. 5 thanks to a physical release of its deluxe edition on vinyl and CD.

TOP SONGS

If this week’s Billboard 200 albums chart seems uneventful, then wait until you see the singles chart. The biggest news revolves around Bruno Mars — who now performs on two of the week’s top three songs — and Lady Gaga, whose “Die With a Smile” sits at No. 1 for a fourth consecutive week. With Bad Bunny’s “DTMF” holding at No. 2, Mars’s duet with BLACKPINK‘s ROSÉ (“APT.”) climbs from No. 5 to No. 3, in the process leapfrogging Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which holds at No. 4.

Neither “Die With a Smile” nor “APT.” will be the last word from Gaga or Mars in 2025, either. The former just announced the arrival of her new album, Mayhem, on March 7, while the latter just dropped another duet: a collaboration with fast-rising rapper Sexyy Red, titled “Fat, Juicy & Wet.” The song isn’t radio-friendly, to put it mildly, but in a world where streaming dominates, it wouldn’t be out of the question to see Mars rejoin himself (and himself) on the charts in the weeks to come. And that’s saying nothing of a possible new album, given that he hasn’t released a full-length solo record since 2016’s 24K Magic.

With so little action in the top 10, there are two other songs worth noting in the chart’s lower regions. One is GELO’s viral hit “Tweaker,” which sits at No. 38 in its third week on the chart. For those who don’t follow basketball, or only follow players who’ve found success in college or the NBA, GELO is LiAngelo Ball — a.k.a. the middle child of the heavily hyped Ball family. (His siblings Lonzo and LaMelo play in the NBA; LiAngelo has bounced around a few non-NBA professional leagues.) GELO even performed “Tweaker” at the Detroit Lions’ ill-fated playoff game against the Washington Commanders, so it’s more than just an internet fixation.

It’s also notable that Imogen Heap‘s song “Headlock” debuted on last week’s Hot 100 at… No. 100. This week, it soars all the way up to No. 98. Why is this newsworthy? It turns out that, in a pioneering electro-pop career that stretches back roughly three decades, Heap had never landed one of her own songs on the Hot 100 until now. Not even her classic “Hide and Seek” — which popped up on The O.C. and SNL and was sampled by Jason Derulo in his 2009 chart-topper “Whatcha Say,” while influencing everyone from Bon Iver to Kanye West along the way — has charted on its own.

There’s an explanation behind “Headlock” — which, like “Hide and Seek,” is from Heap’s 2005 album Speak for Yourself — hitting the charts 20 years after its release. It turns out that the song’s unsettling, futuristic vibe has helped make it part of a social-media trend wherein users place the song over footage from the horror video game Mouthwashing. That has, in turn, led to a surge in streaming for “Headlock.”

Heap has won two Grammys. Her 2019 Tiny Desk concert is a classic. One of her albums, 2009’s Ellipse, hit the top five of the Billboard 200. She’s influenced generations of pop, hip-hop and R&B musicians. And, thanks to Derulo and her contributions to Taylor Swift’s 1989, Heap has experienced life at the top of the charts. But it took a video game — a video game she had nothing to do with! — to finally land one of her own recordings on the Hot 100 in its own right.

WORTH NOTING

If there’s one overarching theme of the Billboard charts in the streaming era, it’s that the humble pop song — that most seemingly ephemeral of art forms — has developed an ever-longer shelf life. Before streaming, a huge pop hit might climb the chart for a month or two, peak in the top 10, then head back into oblivion in a matter of a few months. Now, it’s not that unusual for our most inescapable hits to chart for a year or more.

Two milestones this week illustrate that point.

The first is that Shaboozey’s song of last summer (and fall), “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” has just tied the all-time record for weeks atop Billboard‘s Radio Songs chart, which measures commercial radio airplay. Airplay trends often follow streaming trends, and partially as a result, songs are hanging around on radio playlists to what can seem like an infinite degree. In the case of “A Bar Song” — as it was in the case of The Weeknd‘s “Blinding Lights,” the 2020 track it ties — that means 26 weeks, or a full half-year, at No. 1. Trailing far behind, with 18 weeks at No. 1 on Radio Songs, are Goo Goo Dolls’ 1998 lighter-waver “Iris” and Miley Cyrus‘ 2023 smash “Flowers.”

Then there’s the curious case of Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Control” — which, like “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” still sits comfortably in the top 10. “Lose Control” has just logged its incredible 75th week on the Hot 100, a feat exceeded by just six other songs. The track debuted, inauspiciously enough, at No. 99 back in August 2023. This week, it actually climbs, jumping from No. 9 to No. 7. Swims will perform at the Grammys this weekend, so it’s not as if he’s fading from view any time soon.

Here are the six songs that have exceeded the Hot 100 top 10 run posted by “Lose Control,” listed in ascending order. Unsurprisingly, every one of them came out in the 21st century:

6. Jason Mraz, “I’m Yours,” 76 weeks beginning in 2008. As amiable as it was unkillable, “I’m Yours” was a staple of radio playlists, coffee shops and American Idol auditions.

5. Dua Lipa, “Levitating,” 77 weeks beginning in 2021. If you listen closely, you can still hear “Levitating” on the wind.

4. AWOLNATION, “Sail,” 79 weeks beginning in 2013. You’d be forgiven if you had to Google this one — a sleeper hit by a non-household name, it peaked at No. 17 — but thanks to commercials, TV shows and movie soundtracks, you’ll likely know it the second you hear it.

3. Imagine Dragons, “Radioactive,” 87 weeks beginning in 2013. Rock radio never really let go of this song, but it was fully inescapable a decade ago.

2. The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights,” 90 weeks beginning in 2020. The Weeknd has had so many hits, but this one crushed the pandemic-era pop charts — and the aforementioned Radio Songs — as it topped the Hot 100 for four weeks and lingered forever thereafter.

1. Glass Animals, “Heat Waves,” 91 weeks beginning in 2022. Imagine an obnoxious earworm that gets stuck in your head after three seconds of exposure. Now imagine that song spending 91 weeks on the pop charts. This is the Bad Place.